


Meet-Complicated

by FlubbyBunny (DoubtingRabbit)



Category: Tiger & Bunny
Genre: Christmas fic, Gift Fic, Hospitalization, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Meet-Cute, Misunderstandings, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 23:38:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17171639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoubtingRabbit/pseuds/FlubbyBunny
Summary: A little Christmas gift fic for BlitheFool about how Keith and Yuri would ever even get together....





	Meet-Complicated

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BlitheFool](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlitheFool/gifts).



When he first woke up, he was blessedly aware of little more than that he was lying on his back, that there was some kind of pain on the edge of his perception, and that he had a name but could not recall exactly what it was.

He fell back asleep.

-

When he woke again later, a few more things surfaced for him.

He realized he was in a hospital bed--not that he could see it, as he could barely open his eyes, but drew his clues from the beeping of machinery and the acrid clean smell in the air. He understood that he wasn't in pain because he was medicated.

Still he knew his name was Yuri  ████ Petrov. He could recall his address, occupation, age. Present was all the basic information that reassured him he had not lost much, if any, mental faculties. Slightly less reassuring was the inability to recall what it was that put him in there, and without the pain to clue him in, he had no idea what was wrong.

The last thing he recalled, he was walking home from… something… and he'd stopped to admire the holiday lighting that had been hung on every tree in the square. It gave the cold night some cheer and more warmth than it deserved.

He remembered smiling a little at the pretty scene, and then something else caught his eye.

A little girl, sobs wracking her helplessly. Her mother over her, screaming a warning for her to shut up. Suddenly, her hand was raised.

The caught eye flamed.

God, the whole square burst into flames of blue and green. The citizens of Sternbild on the streets screamed in terror, but had nowhere to run as the fire-that-did-not-consume burst down the offshoots and alleyways. They were not rage-hot, they were the blinding heat of justice yet to be done.

The Lunatic cast no shadow as he approached the woman, who now cowered like her daughter had. Before the higher power. That cold feeling in his heart warmed, burned up the pretty trees with their pretty lights, plastic and cold sap sizzling.

"Please!" screamed the woman, hovering over the little girl who was now silent but shaking and blank with fear. "Not my daughter!"

"No," he had said. " _ You. _ "

And then he didn't remember any more than that.

He didn't dare to try and tug at the handcuffs on his wrist, chaining him to the hospital bed. Yuri knew that if he felt that cold metal warm against his wrist, hear the finality of it clanking against the frame of his hospital bed, right now, he would die immediately, self-immolating in horror (and shame).

Instead, he forced himself back to sleep.

-

He awoke, having forgotten himself again. Perhaps it was the shock of the seeing a furry face used to leverage open his door warm and organic in the cold hospital room full of machinery that drove his name from his memory again, and that was for the best for the moment.

He tried to smile invitingly through the tubes in his nose and, with impossible accuracy at the expression, the dog smiled back. It took the invitation, entering the room. It padded to the bedside, licked one hand hanging (free of any restraint) off the side. It settled down, smiled wider when that same hand it had licked settled on his head.

For some time they sat like that until outside the room, he heard a man's voice calling out in a stage whisper, "John? John? Where did he g--oh! Oh! My God! John, no! That's not--"

John turned his head toward the voice but made no motion to leave his side. Another voice joined his.

"It's fine, Mr. Goodman. That patient hasn't had a single visit since he got here, he could use someone to sit in with him."

"He was in the gas line explosion on Reynaud Square, wasn't he? The one four days ago, where they called in all the superheroes."

"Yes, he took quite a nasty burn when some of the debris hit him. We couldn't find any family to contact, only his home address and his place of work. Poor thing..."

"Oh. What's his name?"

"Mr. Goodman, you know I can't tell you that. Medical confidentiality."

Another, "oh," with this one sounding much more profoundly disappointed.

"But it is on a label on his chart. And there's another half hour before Visitation is over," the nurse's voice said, trailing off as they wandered away.

Shortly after that, a shaggy blonde head that neatly matched that of the dog's popped through the door in much the same way.

"Mr. Petrov?" he asked, butchering the pronunciation and drawing out the 'e' into a long vowel. "You, wouldn't like some company, would you?"

"John is doing a good job," Yuri replied while weakly but contentedly patting the dog's head. "But you can join us."

And so they sat for the next half hour, with Mr. Goodman explaining that John was a trained therapy dog who would spend hours comforting those hospitalized. There had been two years of training, but it had been worth it. He showed Yuri how John could hold perfectly still, even keeping his whiplike tail straight and unmoving while being tantalized with a treat.

The expression on the dog's face made Yuri laugh until he coughed, and Mr. Goodman apologized.

"Don't be sorry," he said, glad that his new-and-only visitor hadn't asked him a single question about himself. "This has been … wonderful."

"Visitation hours are over," said the same nurse from before joined them. Yuri realized he'd seen the man's face in a haze of painkillers and hospital dreams. "You can come back tomorrow."

"I can't. But I can come back the day after," Mr. Goodman said, his eyes questioning. John mirrored the action with a cock of his head.

"Yes. Please," said Yuri, smiling and sinking back into his pillow as he left.

When his visitor had gone, and the nurse finished checking his patient's vitals, he dared a question before the man could leave him alone again.

"Who was he?"

"You mean Keith?" The nurse smiled. "He's an angel from heaven."

And he left the room as well, leaving Yuri to wonder just how seriously he was being until he drifted off again.

-

Keith--Goodman, he'd learned, was his surname--came to visit again the following afternoon, using up the last half hour of his time there to chat with Yuri about the weather outside his windowless room. They talked about Yuri's job in the Justice Tower downtown and his admiration for a man whose work was for a safer future for Sternbild. They chatted Keith's degree in Physical Education and his work that kept him busy at all hours, helping people in need. They share their common love of curry, their favorite joints, and the bitter fate he held to eat hospital food. And, all the while, he would pet John and allow the nurses to do whatever they needed to his battered leg without complaint. 

And then at the end of the half hour, he would thank Yuri for his time as though he had been anything but a blessing, and then make an appointment to see him again within the next three days. Which he would readily accept, and within a week, as Keith would leave the room, the smile he put on Yuri's lips would stay a while longer.

After two weeks, Keith snuck in takeout curry from the spot he'd not stopped talking about since their friendship formed. Yuri judged each dish to be the best he'd ever had, but fed the papadoms to John.

Three weeks in to the visits, when Yuri neared the harshest aspects of recovery and physical therapy, Keith brought him flowers. Daily. By the end of it all, his bare room was stuffed full with sentimental sunflowers and plush dogs holding pillows that hoped he'd "GET WELL SOON!!!"

And then, as his recovery seemed near complete and Yuri told him that the doctor had announced a release date in a week, Keith had kissed him and requested that the next appointment they made be outside the hospital. A date, at that same spot he'd brought that first sneak-in meal.

He only had one request: that he would see him before his release.

"My job has me busy this week--but I know I'll be there to pick you up that afternoon," Keith promised.

They kissed again, and then... Yuri waited.

-

Yuri felt his stomach flutter throughout the morning. He had woken at 7:00 AM and immediately forced himself back to sleep. When he opened his eyes again, it was more than two hours later and he nearly felt himself shoot out of bed. It was then that he finally felt the pain in his leg that had put him into that bed in the first place. He distracted himself with the bland breakfast, counting down the last few minutes until ten o'clock.

Nothing.

So he waited an extra half hour. And still nothing, after even two hours. An underwhelming lunch of gelatin, vegetable-fish broth, and a plain iceberg lettuce salad arrived only to be pushed around for another hour and a half when he suddenly heard the voice he'd been waiting for the whole morning long, rumbling wordlessly down the hall from him.

It was Keith's voice, Yuri knew it well now, which announced: " _ Sky High! _ "

Yuri nearly greyed out in horrified shock, then forced himself to look for an exit.

The Hero!? The  _ King of Heroes  _ title-holder? Clearly, he was there to arrest the powerful NEXT who'd started the blaze in a busy holiday shopping spot! He'd been tricked into trusting this kind and gentle idiot who held his hand when he cried from pain, physical or emotional, and given away everything somehow--idiot!

With his leg burned, bound, and throbbing out a warning of what might happen should he put too much work on it--he supposed one of his options was self-immolation, but that would feel like an extremely hypocritical end for the Lunatic.

No.

He knew what he would do: Yuri would face him. In the name of the brand of eye-for-an-eye justice which he valued, he would face the consequences of his actions, even if it meant coming to his end at the hands of a TV star. 

So, the Lunatic packed his bags with the intent of never returning home, signed his hospital papers, and then laid back on the hospital cot that had been his home for a month, folded his hands across his chest, and waited. And waited.

And  _ waited _ . He waited three hours, hearing the professional hero spending his morning off. Just when Yuri had drifted off into an anxiety-ridden doze, he heard that voice again.

"Ready to go, Yuri?" He still butchered the pronunciation, but not so completely as he once had, standing in the doorway. He was not dressed in his hero uniform, but in his usual jeans-and-sweater combination.

"Call me Petrov. Please," he said, adding a muttered, "It must be written on the warrant."

"What? I just got good at Yuri, and I'm still no good at Pee--"

"Stop." Yuri said, his palid and angular face somehow all the paler and pinched. "I'm the Lunatic, and you're taking me in."

"I'm taking you home, yeah," Keith said with a smile, any confusion was almost immediately ignored as was his habit. He picked up the suitcase. "John is waiting for you downstairs."

He scanned Sky High-- _Keith_ for cuffs, for a badge tucked in his jeans. For some sign that he'd been sly this entire time, creeping up on him with a false stupidity, anything!  and nothing. Nothing at all, just the kind and sweet man who'd spent his spare hours between full-time professional hero-ing at world-class levels, volunteering and general acts of kindness ... with him, Yuri Petrov.

Perhaps the Lunatic could stay a secret for a while long. 

Yuri swung his feet off the side of the bed and stood, giving Keith a smile that only magnified the hero's own.

"Well, we better not keep him waiting, then," he said taking his arm.


End file.
